She Made My Bed
by Rogue28
Summary: Challenge fic from Supernova (see link in profile). Trip finds a simple act of kindness in a crazy world.


**Title**: She Made My Bed  
**Author**: Rogue  
**Ships**: T/T  
**Disclaimer**: I'm just playing in the sandbox. If I was making any money off of this, I'd be writing like crazy.  
**Archive:** Posted to Supernova. (See profile to link.) Permission to the HoT and the Warp 5 project. Everybody else, please ask first.  
**Summary**: My response to my own challenge. From Trip's POV, spoilers through Season 3. AU, especially as I won't get to see the last episodes of Season 3 until later this week. Cross-posted to Supernova, home of sci-fi and fantasy Fan Fiction. Hey, we need more ST authors over there, come, join!!

She made my bed.

I've never really thought that making your bed was particularly logical. I mean, I usually make my bed, because my mama didn't raise me in a barn, but why make something that you're going to mess up in a few hours anyway?

I doubt T'Pol would see it that way. Order and all that. But I barely had time to sleep, much less, make my bed. Or say, eat.

I'd seen Phlox coming towards me in the hallway, and I immediately knew what he wanted. "Commander."

"Doc," I said, trying to get my repairs to the EPS conduit done before he pulled rank on me.

"Isn't it time for you to take a rest?" he said.

I twisted a bolt into place. "Getting' close, I guess."

"Probably well past time, eh?" he said as I checked the flow regulators, swearing under my breath.

"Commander, while I would prefer to stand here and verbally dance around the subject, I have patients to attend to."

I gave the bolt a final whack in desperation and was rewarded with the pressure equalizing. "Right, right. Let me get this panel on, and I'll go. Four hours, Doc, no more."

"Six, Commander," he said. "You can get by on the small increments of sleep you've be subsisting upon only so long. Four hours every two days will not repair Enterprise any faster. You need a stretch of uninterrupted sleep. And if I have to, I'll go to T'Pol or the captain to make sure you don't make an appearance out of your cabin for the next six hours."

I glared. "Thanks a lot, Doc."

He just smiled. "Why, you're perfectly welcome, Commander. I'm glad I could be of assistance."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, packing up my tools. "I'm goin.'"

"Sleep, Commander!" he called down the hallway after me. "That does not mean staying up working on schematics and repair schedules."

He was determined to keep me from doing anything productive. And it was unlikely that I was going to sleep much anyway. My nightmares had gotten better, but that didn't mean that my worries had just disappeared overnight. General stress was causing some rather vivid dreams of late.

And whether he liked it or not, I did need to rotate the engineering schedule so the rest of my crew could get some sleep. I'd had to order two of them to sleep myself, and when they threw my own lack of downtime in my face, I reminded them that I also had to be ordered to sleep and if they wanted to discuss it with Phlox, they were welcome to do so.

Unfortunately, the doc was right, and Enterprise wasn't going to run if I didn't get some rest, but Enterprise was going to self-destruct if I got too much, so I had to find a balance in there somewhere.

My tools fell against the desk with a clunk as I sat down, turning on the desk lamp and unzipping my uniform almost to my waist. The rotation schedule was sitting there from, well, I couldn't remember from when. I had to make some changes. Deleting a few people, and my fingers froze as I read their names, realizing that they weren't ever going to be back on this list.

I set the datapad back down, closing my eyes, trying not to think about it. I'd nearly dozed off in my chair when my door opened with a nearly silent woosh.

I sat straight up in my chair, hoping to death that it wasn't Phlox coming to check on me, but I turned and saw T'Pol, an eyebrow raised at my sprawled figure in my desk chair. "T'Pol! What are you doin' here?"

The eyebrow raised even higher. "Dr. Phlox requested that I come and determine if you were actually following his instructions to sleep and not—" she gave a pointed glance towards the datapad that I'd laid down in front of me—"work."

"I swear, T'Pol, I'd almost dozed off in my chair anyway. I don't think I could keep my eyes open long enough to stare at print on a datapad anyway," I said, yawning.

"Evidently," she said, crossing the room towards my bed. She picked up my pillow from the floor and placed it at the head of the bed, and pulled the sheets from under the blanket to lay smooth across the mattress. She was pulling the blanket up and folding it down just a bit when my sleep-deprived mind finally caught on.

"T'Pol, what are you doin?'"

She straightened. "I would think that would be obvious. I was making your bed."

I blinked for a moment, and "Why?" came out my mouth before I thought about it, never minding how rude it sounded.

She glanced at the bed. "In all probability, your sleep will benefit from a bed that is not already disheveled. Assuming you rise from your chair and make it to your bed."

"Absolutely," I said, making the effort to rise right then, blinking against the waves of sleep that seemed to wash over me.

The eyebrow went up again, and she came around my desk to take hold of my arm. She pressed a point on my hand, and I felt my eyes pop open enough to be able to see clearly. "That should allow you enough time to change and get into bed, Commander," she said. "I hope you will not use it to work."

I yawned, despite the minor boost of energy she'd managed to extract from my exhausted body. "I promise, I won't."

"Good," she said, turning to leave. "Is your alarm still malfunctioning?"

"Um," I glanced over at it. It was still dark. "Yeah."

"I will wake you in six hours," she said, the door shutting behind her.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled my boots off, then peeled my uniform off before pulling the blankets around me. My last conscious thought was to ask T'Pol in the morning how she got in my quarters.


End file.
